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Law Educator, Esq., Attorney

Category: Employment Law

Satisfied Customers: 111638

Experience: 20+ Years of Employment Law Experience

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I recently resigned from the sheriffs office after an

Customer Question

I recently resigned from the sheriffs office after an internal investigation for "associating with criminals" because I let my daughter play with another woman's daughter and I had no idea she had a criminal background, however her cousin had a criminal history and knew me from when she was in jail. I did not associate with the cousin, only in passing. The captain of the sheriffs office stated it would be wise to resign because I would likely lose my standards.. She stated this after my initial interview. I was so worried about my standards and this is why I resigned. Never did I knowingly associate with a criminal.. And as for the captain, she and I had issues in the past to include her attempting to have me Baker Acted so the SO could terminate me then. However, that didn't work because the doctors said it was bogus and they had no grounds. After my resignation, she told my boyfriend's (who is also a deputy) captain about me and his supervisors informed him not to be around me or to bring me to sheriffs office functions. I was never told I could not attend sheriffs office functions and I left in good standing.JA: Because employment law varies from place to place, can you tell me what state this is in?Customer: I sent in a rebuttal to my investigation but they are not giving it to agencies I've applied to. I can't seem to get hired anywhere because of this..JA: Have you talked to a lawyer yet?Customer: Florida. And no, because our SO doesn't have a unionJA: Anything else you think the lawyer should know?Customer: I have no other disciplinary actions in my file. I was with the SO for 6 years.JA: OK. Got it. I'm sending you to a secure page on JustAnswer so you can place the $5 fully-refundable deposit now. While you're filling out that form, I'll tell the Employment Lawyer about your situation and then connect you two.

Thank you for your question. I look forward to working with you to provide you the information you are seeking for educational purposes only.You can be fired for consorting with KNOWN criminals. In order fro their charges to stick they would have to prove you actually knew she was a convicted criminal. However, the problem is once you have resigned you would not be able to pursue a legal action against the employer for wrongful termination.Sadly, you are going to have to explain what happened to your prospective employers before they find out on their own. So when you apply, you need to submit an explanation that you could not afford to fight the charge that you resigned because they were going to terminate you regardless of the fact you had no way of knowing the woman was a criminal and it was your children playing together not you and the woman. This is all you can do, despite the fact that had you stuck it out, you would have had a good wrongful termination suit against them if they terminated you for this reason without proof that you knew she was a criminal.

I continue to try and provide a copy of my investigation with my rebuttal letter to agencies to which I've applied. They still don't seem to want to hire me...Is this a type of defamation with the captain advising my boyfriend and others in the agency to stay away from me without any type of concrete evidence?? Thank you.

Thank you for your reply.Unfortunately, under law you resigned under investigation and they have a right to say you left on bad terms.This is one of those unfortunate situations where if you would have stuck it out and gone through the grief of the investigation and forced them to take action you would have had a good case if there was no proof you knew she was a criminal, but your resignation killed any case you may have had.